Streamline
by pennameisblank
Summary: Little Mermaid AU. Tom Marvolo Riddle, prince of the merman kingdom, discovered "the land above the waves" upon his fifteenth birthday. Soon the wonders of the dry land catches his fascination, and the longer he stayed, the harder it is to turn back. Tom should've listened to his mother; curiosity killed the cat, after all. Too bad Tom Riddle does neither guilt nor regret.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

**Streamline**

Fandom: Harry Potter, Little Mermaid AU

AUTHOR NOTES: Okay, I know I should be updating Not Quite Genius, but I have only written half of the next chapter when the last three Naruto updates appeared… and killed my mood. Seriously. Now I'm fleeing from Naruto to jump on board One Piece (where Oda is being his most awesome self), and what can I say? HP fandom is one of the immortals… quite literally. Also, forgive the lame title.

Pairings: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle Jr., platonic like a mountain range. Honestly, I can't write romance to save my life.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended; this fictional work is written for entertainment purposes only.

WARNING: If you are one of those people who grew up on Disney princesses, I'm warning you. I do not use Disney's desensitized version of Hans Christian Andersen and Grimm Brothers' tragically bloody CHILDREN bedtime stories as the jumping point in this fic, or my possible future fics. Look the original version up, if you did not know how the original Little Mermaid story goes, because quite a few points are drastically different in Disney and Andersen's versions—which will also be different in this fic, naturally.

This is yet to be beta-ed. All mistakes are my own, thank you for pointing them!

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Streamline Chapter 1: Prologue

_Streamline: Contour economically or efficiently_

Thomas Marvolo.

Prince Marvolo.

Little brother Tommy… he lips pulled back viciously into a grimace at the thought, safe in the knowledge that his choice of plant will mask his visage, behind the tree's gently swaying tresses of red foliage, the waxy luster reflecting the sunlight that filtered in through the depths.

Sometimes his sisters can be so very thick.

He rested against the smooth, willowy trunk of his tree—a gentle tree with sorrowful, demure air, as if its branches were bent downwards with a burden unknown to all creatures underwater, its twigs a warm black-brown, so fragile like the fingers of a child, so tangled with each other, with leaves cascading gently down their length. The miniscule leaves prickled the skin of his neck, and he vaguely felt the telltale scratch as his delicate complexion was marred with thin red streaks, which quickly dissolves into the water around him, only the faintest whiff of blood remaining.

A dichotomy. His lonely, single tree was a dichotomy, and Tom wouldn't have it any other way. He refused to grow feeble, mortal flowers in his garden, as his sisters did; his tree was eternal. A deceptive gentleness, with razor-sharp edges, combined with apparent deformity that belied its simple persistence to live, to thrive under Tom's disagreeable nurturing capabilities. Tom's tree was an ancient minnow-trapping carnivorous devil snarl.

He wouldn't choose some flowers that needed to be coddled, to be tended with utmost care to bloom; it was against his nature to care for something as menial and trivial as simple flowers. No, his garden was a haven for the strong-willed, a perfect miniature environment of the open seas where the strong reigns supreme.

He held out his left hand, allowing a brightly striped, rainbow-colored coral reef butterfly to brush against his fingertips.

A split moment later, a shimmering green shape lunged and a sickening crunch was heard.

"Nagini," Tom murmured, fingers coolly splayed against the jaw of the serpent. He felt along the pale underbelly of the sea snake, tickling the thinner, sheer scales. The snake slid along his arm with serpentine grace, mass of muscle swiftly flexing under its shimmering scales.

"_Good morning, fish-man-child," _the snake crooned, continuing to slither its way around Tom's neck.

"_Good morning to you, too, Nagini,"_ Tom replied, absently stroking the cool scales against the back of his neck. _"Did you hunt this morning?"_

"_Oh, yeeess," _the great snake hissed, the sound a strangely harmonious cacophony. _"Strangest things happen across myself in the morning, little fish-man-child,"_ its forked tongue darted out, brushing against Tom's jaw with feather light caress.

"_What strange things?"_

"_Remains of men of the land above the waves, little fish-man-child," _the snake imparted its wisdom before curling itself into the hollow of Tom's shallow collarbone. _"Now be quiet and let me get some rest."_

"_Wait a minute, Nagini—did you say that they overlooked such a thing?"_

Nagini let out an amused hiss. _"Silly fish-man-child," _the serpent crooned, scales sliding in search for warmth in Tom's pale skin. _"Humans lose their vessels every so often. Soon they will realize it's not coming, little humans they are, and mourn for it."_

"_What do they do, Nagini? And why have I never seen them?"_

Nagini hissed in annoyance. _"Little fish-man-child, you are too small to venture above the waves, unlike me. _I _have seen the great fire they set upon our ocean, child. You must see it—there is nothing quite like it here, underwater."_

Tom scratched the side of Nagini's belly, moving the surprisingly heavy weight so that it rested comfortably around his collarbone. _"A fire? What is a fire?"_

"_A great light they make with drifted woods, child. Light, and heat, and the crackle of our ocean."_

"_I should like to watch this fire," _Tom stated, his mind alight with imaginations. _"What do they do, Nagini? Do they play with fire, like you and me play among the flowers?"_

"_I am not human, child," _Nagini reprimanded softly, tongue flicking Tom's nose. _"I only see that they set it off above the waves, so that its smoke rose high to the sky, and they sing and dance for their fallen. And _you _play in the flower beds, Tom, whilst _I _simply wait for my next meal to deliver itself."_

Tom sighed, lulled by the easy companionship and conversation. His eyelids felt heavy, but in front of his eyes, was moving pictures of sunken ships, pieces of wood, tar, tangles of heavy rope, and human men and women screaming and flailing their little limbs to escape the dark, cold waters. And there were his sisters' voices, and his gentle, sick mother, and his ignorant, oblivious father's, and they all sung to the fallen sailors, melodies haunting the depths, inviting their brethren, and even the sharks pause to listen to the choir. And then there was him, as he weaved through the steadily sinking ruins of a ship, the tune he was singing just a bit less haunting, and a bit more cheerful. After all, he had never seen the whole process of sinking, drowning, as if a great fish that has lost its breath, drawn underwater so, very slowly, to never see the sun until finally it gave up with a great sigh. And then wood planks splintered, the hull split in two, and Tom imagined seeing the figurehead—a mermaid, ironically—gave its last gleam known to creatures as the heavy silver-lined dark wood plunged into the darkness of the abyss.

Overall, it was a very fascinating sight to imagine… the struggle of the wooden construction to stay afloat, the fierce determination of land-humans, with their four little limbs wildly paddling them upwards. They seemed so strange underwater, something alien that was introduced into the ethereal underwater life by an almost casual wave that rolled forward and sent the ship crashing into the reef. In the end, he imagined their heavy, golden jewelries—in accordance to the stories his mother had once told him, however few they were—were like deadweight pulling their little necks underwater, with their little precious stones gleaming mockingly, before the water seeped into their thick cloaks and further strangled them. It was a glorious sight.

A hundred miles from Tom's garden, a little boy wept for his lost mother.

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A.N. 2: I made Tom the "mermaid princess" *snickers* with OC sisters, and Nagini an old sea snake that apparently hunt as far as the coastal waters. This is just a prologue, though, so I'm hoping the next chapter will be considerably longer. I just felt that it was a good place to stop.

Is my Tom *fangirlsqueal* realistic enough? He's still young, so he's not as bitter as he was in canon, with different circumstances (Merope yet to die, siblings, etc). Those things can change someone's personality. Besides, this is AU for a reason!

Cookies for everyone who can guess what will happen next chapter! (My sister makes the most wonderful chocochip cookies!) :9 and everyone who reviewed :9 and followed, put my story on alert. But mostly reviewed :9


	2. Chapter 2: Pitter Patter

A.N.: Thank you all who read, followed, favorite-d, and reviewed my first chapter of Streamline! You guys are awesome Now that's out of the way… the plot I had in mind had strayed from what I thought originally, so I changed my summary, but the longer I think about it, it's way too similar to a merfolk fantasy series … meh whatever. I'll deal with it when it comes.

**Insanely-Yours96**: I'm glad you think so, but personally, any story with Tom and Harry are disaster waiting to happen *wink haha

**2 Guest who wouldn't sign****in** : I can't update _that_ soon, you know. I have quiz week approaching... and mid-term exams... and extracurricular activities. I wish I hadn't signed up for them :(

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Streamline Chapter 2: Pitter Patter

_Retrograde: Of amnesia; affecting time immediately preceding trauma. Going from better to worse._

"The Queen?!"

Harry James Potter fell to his knees in shock, meticulously combed jet black hair falling to his eyes, obscuring the messenger's view of the crown prince's face safe the slightly parted lips and the pale, ashen skin.

"… The preparations for a search party have been issued, Your Majesty," the messenger, a sandy-haired young lad, continued nonetheless, determined to deliver all the information before the royal family grieved properly. It's his job on the line, after all, though he found it hard to continue when he glanced at the grief-stricken face of the king.

There was no other sound in the audience chamber.

"… You may go now," Harry dismissed him weakly, clutching his dark green woolen cloak to his chest. The messenger got up gratefully and bowed in deference before scampering away.

His mother… he whimpered as pain lanced through his strangely hollow chest, the ache throbbing madly like a limb cut off. He realized with a strange sense of detachment that his vision blurred, and something like the pitter-patter of the rain echoed in the room.

The silence was suffocating, Harry could have sworn he hyperventilated right there and then. It was when he braved a look at his father's face, blurred with something he realized must be tears, that he felt his duty was clearer than ever—he can't fall to the same pit his father jumped into. The search hasn't even been commenced.

He was the crown prince, and he would uphold his duty, and to do that, first of all he needed to find his lost mother.

"Father," he started, "I wish to accompany the search team."

Instantly, James Charlus Potter awoke from his stupor. "No you're not." He snapped, grief and sorrow morphing into anger and burning fury. "You're not going anywhere near the docks, you hear me, young man?"

Harry felt, more than saw, his father's unhinged temper resting at a precarious balance with the death… or possible death, he reminded himself halfheartedly, after all they still haven't found any proof yet. She… she must've held on to a piece of drift wood. There's no way his mother could die _this _easily… it doesn't make sense.

She was a spirited woman, with easy, gentle smiles, compassionate soul, and with a fiery beauty to complete it. Harry shared her heart-shaped face, and small nose, and her small stature, but most of all her green, green eyes, and as his father stared him down to a submission he didn't feel, he knew his father felt it too—saw, after all those years, the stark resemblance between his son and his potentially lost wife.

Abruptly, James averted his eyes, and a pang went in Harry's chest.

"Excuse me, Father," he murmured, his arms clutched fiercely around himself.

When James didn't reply, Harry felt a strange sense of doom loomed over them, straining the atmosphere to unbearable pressure. Suddenly his father seemed so far away; the lost look in his usually kind, hazel eyes, the hunched back, the pallid pallor unbefitting his father's tan complexion… Harry could almost see his father crawled up into himself. It was a simple defense mechanism for coping with grief… '_Except that there's nothing to grief for. There's still no proof, after all'_, Harry reminded himself.

Somehow, the words sounded hollow even to his own mind.

"Your Excellency," the head of the servants greeted, the aged man's voice vacant of its usual exuberance.

James gave a tiny nod with his head, and the old man stepped forward with two redheaded boys carrying small tray in their hands. The two took a glance at the king and promptly left the tea and assortment of condiments and sweet buns on the ornate glass table.

James watched detachedly as Dobby measured his cup of tea with practiced ease, spooning a cube of sugar and added a whip of milk. He served it with honeyed bread in small crisp loaves, the aroma of freshly baked flour and milk and tea permeating the room.

Usually the king would thank him for his dedicated service to the palace, but King James stared forward, unseeing, eyes blank and unfeeling.

Dobby however had too much sense of duty, and so he pulled the two boys, Fred and George, by the scruff of their necks into an awkward bow before hastily excusing themselves to the exit.

The two redheads had little decorum outside of the room.

"What happened—"

"—to the king? He looked—"

"—like someone just—"

"—died."

Dobby couldn't even muster a smile for the boys.

* * *

"Mother, I want to see the ruins of the ship that drowned the other day," Tom curled his fingers around his mother's thin wrist lightly.

"And who told you of this ship, sweetheart?" Merope's pale, thin complexion stretched painfully with the smile she gave her only son.

Tom hesitated. His sisters didn't care much for his serpent companion, but his father didn't like it that he spent more time with a _snake_ than his people… how would his mother react?

"A friend of mine," he said finally. Merope seemed to sense that there was more to this 'friend' than Tom had said, but didn't press it, and for that Tom's fondness of his mother grew just a teeny bit. "… She was swimming when the ship sank."

"Oh, a female?" Merope asked, amusement lighting her usually dim, blank slate eyes.

Tom averted his eyes uncomfortably. "Well, yes, and she said humans will light a great fire on the sea for the ship. I want to see it."

Merope grew somber, not saying anything as her son pulled her by her wrist to the king's chamber. If Tom noticed something off with his mother, he didn't question it, and once again Merope appreciated her son's sense of discretion, if out of his social ineptitude. He was essentially avoiding making her uncomfortable with unnecessary questions, and it endeared him to her more than her daughters' merrymaking.

"Let me talk to your father, then," Merope said finally, with a thin smile. "Who knows, you're his heir—he's bound to show you some lenience to make your own choices."

"What's so bad with seeing something of humans' world?" Tom wondered out loud, pausing in front of great crystalline green doors that led to the king's throne room.

Merope stopped beside him, the corners of her eyes taut and her jaw clenched painfully. "… Some say it will entice you, like we can enchant them," Merope whispered, pupils dilated, making her pale skin all the more noticeable. "That it will ensnare your mind; you will turn back on your own kind to pursue something else. Something _nonexistent_ with humans who walked the dry lands."

She blinked, and her eyes lost their previous misty, dazed look. "Let's hope for best," she murmured, because that's what she does best; hoping that someday a divine hand will intercept and stir the merrily monotonous, repetitive life of the merfolk. She hoped, Tom knew, and she prayed to whatever deity who watched over them, and ground offerings to dust in the streams—berries, salty weeds, rainbow scales, even drops of newborn babe's blue blood, when she gave birth to each of her children.

They entered to see the king dancing with his elder daughter, a girl five years Tom's senior, with the usual entourage clapping and swinging and swaying merrily to the faint, relaxed music.

Abruptly, the music stopped, and the king caught his daughter mid-swing the split second it was stopped with precise grace and strength.

"Merope, my wife," he murmured, dark eyes half-lidded. His lips twitched, for a moment, but Tom caught it nonetheless and his despise—no, his _disgust_, his _revulsion_, for the man who sired him climbed. The king's expression was blank, unfeeling, pale lips a straight, distant line and dark lashes fluttering against perfectly shaped cheekbone as he weighed the situation, and once more Tom hated the fact that he looked like his father remade with his mother's slate eyes. "What seems to be the matter? Are you well enough to leave bed?" The king paused. "… Would you like to accompany me dance?"

Tom's eldest sister nodded brightly, dark brown hair wafting like a mass of died weed around her head, forming an ugly halo. "Come hither, Mother," she called, voice sweet and compelling and so utterly _shallow_, Tom aborted his gag reflex. Why can't they be a bit more _aware_, more sensitive of their surrounding? "Come hither and dance with me like you did when I was but a hatchling."

Tom's eyes swerved back to his mother, who stood with quiet dignity that he thought skipped past his sisters right to him, slate eyes thoughtful.

"I'm afraid that will have to wait, Marjorine," Merope's voice was a mere breath under her lips, her eyes riveted on the contemplating look the king wore. "Tom and I are going to see the sunken ship."

Abruptly, all occupants of the hall stilled.

"You are not yet fifteen," the king said softly, reluctance filling in blank, dark eyes. Tom bowed subserviently if only to placate his father. "But I will not go above the waves—the ship, as Mother had said, is _sunk_," Tom delicately replied.

This seemed to appease the majority of his father's entourage, and with it, he knew he had won his father's permission—reluctant though it may be.

"Excellent," Merope cut in, satisfaction glimmering in her eyes for once instead of stark boredom and perpetual pain, _weakness_. "We shall be on our way. Come, dear," Merope hushed Tom gently back to the entrance, her curly dark hair obscuring a portion of her face. Tom let himself be ushered out of the room, vindictive glee still erupting in his chest, and he drowns momentarily in the euphoria.

Once they were safely out of an earshot, Merope gripped Tom's wrist tightly.

"Promise me, Son," she whispered. Tom felt chills went down his spine, and immediately pushed the sensation out of his mind. This is his mother in front of him; no matter if she just spoke like one of those outcast Oracles, or Sea Witches.

"Anything, Mother," Tom replied easily.

"You will not visit the ship without my guidance," Merope said softly. "And not to venture where you should not."

Restrains. Binds. _Crippling_ him.

"I can't promise you the last," Tom allowed a small compromise. "But I will ask your… guidance… whenever I feel like visiting the ship."

Merope's grip tightened until Tom was sure it would leave pale, crescent marks around his wrist.

"The allure of human world is strong," Merope whispered. "Promise me."

Tom looked back steadily at his mother's wide, slate eyes, feeling more than seeing Merope's paralyzing anxiousness, overwhelming fear, and something else entirely he can't comprehend.

"Alright, then," he said finally. "I won't go anywhere."

Immediately, all tension left Merope's body and her grip slackened. Tom discreetly flexed his wrist, relieving the stiffness. Merope's blunt nails had dug their mark on his skin, but Tom didn't mind. Not much anyway. The trail of crescent moon will disappear shortly, after all.

Mother and son swam in a vague beeline towards the site of the wreckage; Merope's hand was firm on Tom's wrist, pulling her son along as they weaved through throngs of ocean life.

"Mother?" Tom asked, softly, because the world was tranquil around them, and he was reluctant to disturb, to cause yet another calamity. The human ship was intruding enough. "How do you know where the wreckage is?"

Merope was silent.

* * *

A.N.2: Thank you for reading, etc. haha. Anyway, after this chapter is a timeskip! If you don't review, Harry would be so sad he won't realize he's jumped in front of a galloping horse that's carrying Hagrid and Madame Maxime at 1 Mach, and will be happily reunited with Lily and his ancestors, and Hagrid will feel guilty, he'll stop feeding the flobberworms and caused them to revolt and ate Hogwarts-which mean no Harry Potter at all. Review!


	3. Chapter 3: Prelude to Insanity

A.N.: Hello to my new reviewers and readers! But mostly reviewers: D Technically, all of you who reviewed my first chapters are new reviewers because, well, different categories and all. I love you all! Reading your reviews made me want to squee, but I, obviously, have image to keep. I'm insane enough as is.

Disclaimer: I'm really tired of stating the obvious.

Warnings: AU verse. A somewhat bitter, angsty Harry, and a bit OC Tom, but I try keeping to their canon characteristics as much as possible in the plot. Tom's true character is going to be revealed bits by bits; the parts of him that faced the world, that is our lovable Tom. Oh yeah, no beta. Thank you all who helped me correct my grammatical mistakes!

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**Streamline Chapter 3: A Prelude to Insanity**

_Cri de Coeur: An impassioned outcry, appeal, protest, or entreaty_

Harry had never felt this miserable. The past two years had been miserable; _his _past two years, _their _past two years; Harry and his father's.

He plucked another shaft of smooth, black wooden arrow and nocked it swiftly with practiced ease. His bowstring thrummed as he released the arrow, and he watched dispassionately as it embedded itself in the center of the range.

"Nice shot," his companion commented without any inflection.

Harry glanced sideways and saw Draco's grey eyes alight with amusement. He gave a halfhearted shrug and unslung his bow, the smooth, familiar curve a comforting weight in his hands.

"I'm not in the mood for this, Draco," he muttered, walking forward to retrieve the arrows he had used. He pulled them from the soft wood with excessive strength, chipping the plank away with vigor. He returned the practice arrows to the slab of stone in the back of the training range, where they kept blunt practice swords, dulled rapiers, unsharpened spearheads, knives, maces, and secondhand axes. He picked a few knives and experimentally threw them to the wall.

They slipped through the hairline cracks between the whitewashed stones all the way to the hilt.

Draco whistled in appreciation.

"Impeccable accuracy as always, my Prince," he drawled.

"Why don't you go find Blaise," Harry instructed, just wishing that Draco would scamper away. He couldn't even muster enough excitement for the gala in honor of his upcoming birthday, his twelfth birthday to be exact, when it was so close to _that _day. And of course, Draco Malfoy, being the obnoxious prat he is, insisted on accompanying him—in other words, clinging like a puppy to him—through his daily routine.

The circumstances in _that_ accident, _that_ singularly unfortunate naval fortuity, were never known. And with each passing day, even after two years, they still haven't recovered. Oh, their kingdom prospers like never before—King James was hailed as the benevolent ruler, much more than his predecessors, and the prince, Prince Harry, was publicly adored. Their trade flourished, their people enjoyed constant peace and tranquility, crime rates were near nil, and it was, overall, like a haven above land.

However, his father the king was never quite the same. If it were not for his loyal advisors, pledging to indulge the whims of the aristocracy and common people alike to associate themselves with their future sovereign, he'd likely abandon all plans of the gala, and all celebrations within a month of _that_ day, Harry's birthday or not.

A gala on the royal battleship.

Granted, it will only set sail about five miles or so, enough to get the nighttime coast scenery—the port town was, according to the people, magnificent in the dark, alight with night life—but not far enough to be in any actually nonexistent danger. Besides, they will be on _the_ royal battleship. Still, his father was consistently trying to hinder the actual planning, and Harry feared the gala would be less than the people have hoped for, if it continued.

"Go look for Blaise, Draco," Harry repeated when the heels of Draco's boots made sharp tack-tack-tack sound following his steps. "I will be in The Library."

He knew Draco could and would sense the capitals on the term, and would comply immediately. Meanwhile, he abandoned the training grounds and set forth towards his library. It was his private library where he stocked books and parchments of subjects of his interest.

Currently, they held tomes of naval navigation, shipbuilding, and great maps of the ocean.

His father would be incensed.

Still, it has been a year since he had procured the hidden room for himself, and his father had not heard a whiff of it. The only ones who knew about it were his noblemen playmates, Draco and Blaise, and the youngest son of the Weasley family who served as his retainer, Ronald. They were also the ones who helped Harry procure the books his father had cleaned out of the palace library, books that will otherwise never be in his reach if his father had any say in that.

He walked with practiced grace befitting one of his statuses, for once, because the palace was swarming with foreign visitors who will also be attending his gala. Not all of them were nobilities, but the palace simply had many rooms for guests, when the inns were already packed with visitors from other cities.

It was at times like these that Harry appreciated the ostensibly harmless appearance of the palace. It looked magnificent, of course, but it has always been that way since the beginning of time, and like always time brought familiarity if nothing else. Since it was first built by Harry's ancestors, there were added pavilions forming a complex around the palace, modifications on the outer wall, and many small renovations that, inevitably, created a maze behind its walls.

Personally, Harry thought all his father's archers could fit in the mazes, there were so many. And their enemies won't even know what hit them… if they have enemies, that is. Nowadays they have peace treaties with kingdoms of neighboring seas—a pact involving agreements about fishing regulations, ship recognitions, signals, and whatnot that Harry once wouldn't have taken seriously.

He chuckled bitterly when he thought of his life before _that_ accident. His life used to consist of horse riding lessons, archery practices (a somewhat uncommon choice, but he was, once again, too small to even try lifting one of their knights' heavy broadswords), etiquette lessons, ballroom dancing, history… and he had thought them all boring.

If only he had known, back then, how much he'd come to appreciate the simplicity of his former life when it had passed by.

Presently, Harry was sidling along an inconspicuously empty wall, feeling along the stones until he pushed one of them and in it went… together with a portion of the wall. He slipped inside and quickly pushed the movable wall back, and it moved silently, solidly, and once again hidden with a satisfying thump.

He took a deep breath, savoring the scent of leather bookbinding, old parchment, and ink that permeated the room.

It was a room squeezed between the eastern pavilion's royal bedchambers, where he moved to last year, and the main building's kitchen, with the only somewhat public entrance hidden in a rarely used passage. The passage winded about the eastern pavilion, some sort of walkway access for the time when servants, apparently, swarmed the palace—in other words, it was a servant's hall…, which is why none of the nobilities used the passage. There were ventilations that were linked to his rooms (one of the reasons why he chose the suite) above his tall bookcases, and the fireplace in the room was connected with the fireplace in his sitting room.

He sat in a recliner he'd moved from his own sitting room through the hearth ("You must've mistaken, Father, there was only a settee in my sitting room") before letting his eyes scan the familiarly comforting room.

It was shaped in half circle—the first reason why he had found it, when his rooms were depressingly rectangular inside a geometrically challenged pavilion—with high ceilings and marble flooring, which led to another assumption—it was originally a room of his past ancestors, likely a hideout of some sort—which led to Harry imagining what things they used to have to hide in the past.

Ugly, ugly things.

Meanwhile, he had other things to plan to… like the pieces of wood and a bunch of calla lilies he's hoping to smuggle on board. His father won't even be present, and he had a few friends among both nobilities and servants that he could assure their silence. Besides, all of them are rather reluctant to deny him from doing what he wanted, since his mother died, and his father could hardly blame him from giving his mother, _sleeping with the fishes_ as the fishermen would say, a small tribute.

He heard, rather than saw, the wall across his seat collapsed backwards, admitting Draco and Blaise into the room.

"I hope you're not planning anything nefarious," Blaise cautioned warily.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Whatever do you mean by that, Blaise, my good friend?"

"Last time the king's advisors forced him to hold a celebration this close to _that_ date, you wrecked the dinner."

Harry sighed. "Unfortunately, Blaise, I'm well aware that this is my twelfth birthday… my official first gathering in my capacity as the prince. I can hardly do that, can I?"

"Doesn't mean it will stop you," Draco replied, crossing the room to sit on a settee Harry pilfered with the help of Ron (because Draco refused to sweat, and Blaise was simply too… unapproachable to work alongside _servants_) from an unused room.

"I am not," Harry stated. "I do hope you will help me bring a few pieces of wood on board, though. And a bouquet of calla lilies."

"Ah." Blaise hid his face in his hands.

* * *

"_Nagini, where have you been?"_

Tom's fingers curled around the great serpent's triangular maw, scratching and feeling along the cool scales.

"_I visited the port-town, fish-man-child," _the snake hissed back with a pleased mixture of hum and hiss when Tom's nails scraped a particularly pleasant spot. _"There is this great big ship moored on the docks, and the town smelled of festivities."_

"_Ah."_

Since his first visit to the "land above the waves", as Nagini called it, Tom had grown a bit fascinated by the whole concept of living on land—understandably, because his race lived their entire life settled underwater. What little the merfolk knew was simply not enough to quench Tom's thirst for knowledge of the wondrous dry world, and he'd taken to visiting a hidden crook at a beach, about a hundred miles away from the merfolk palace, to simply watch and observe every little thing he could see.

"_You might want to come up tomorrow, child," _Nagini suggested. _"Those two-legged humans were talking about a ball of some sort."_

Tom was very, very well acquainted with balls, and sincerely hoped that he wasn't. It's not that he's a bad dancer—he's one of the best dancer there is. It is a fact that merfolk had little else to do than preen and dance and sing, with occasional eating once in a while, and he'd grown… tired… of the whole dancing thing. Since they had precious little else to do, his father the king holds balls as often as disconcertingly possible. In all his seventeen years, he has had more balls than he bothered to count.

It was then that a thought struck him.

"_How do humans dance, Nagini?"_

"… _You'll just have to come and see, child," _Nagini advised, before blinking sleepily and giving Tom's palm one last lazy flick of branched tongue.

"Lazy old snake," Tom murmured, his tone perhaps just a bit fond.

* * *

"What do you mean you want me to remove your guards?" James barely held on to his famous temper.

"Exactly as I said it, Father," Harry stubbornly repeated, his tone dangerously bordering on disrespect.

"If you were not my son, I'll have you in whipped for that," James glowered darkly.

"We have no enemies, Father," Harry insisted, teeth clenching painfully into his jaw when a sneer marred James' handsome features.

"You'll never know, my son," James replied patronizingly. Harry felt his control snap bit by bit.

"With all due respect, Father," he drawled, "even if, somehow, there are assassins out for my blood on board, killing me this early has little relatively lasting damage to the kingdom other than momentary chaos—"

"So you say that I should abandon you to the sharks?!"

"I didn't say that," Harry gritted his teeth. _Temper. Temper. Temper. _His father was seriously not making this any easier. If he had guards tailing him like little puppies, he won't be able to sneak down to the boats to light the offering pyre. "This is my first official gala, Father. It would reflect badly if we are so afraid to show trust this early after pacts of peace."

James raised a condescending eyebrow. "Oh, someone has been studying politics," the king drawled.

"Just as you wished for me," Harry replied flippantly, watching with barely disguised satisfaction as his father seethed silently.

"Don't you understand that I'm already putting you at so much risk at sea—"

"There's nothing wrong with the sea!" Harry snapped. James was so flabbergasted—Harry never talked back to him _this_ harshly—that his lips parted, no words spoken. "About time you realize that it was just another accident, Father! You moved to the west wing away from the sea! You removed all books on navigation and all ship maps from the palace! You even dismissed my arts teacher because she once _drew_ a ship! What else do you hope to do, chain me to my bedposts?!"

Harry's breath came out ragged, his chest heaving, and when all his pent-up aggression has been unleashed, he shuffled backwards away from the man in front of him—his father, his father the king, the king who was forever trapped in his fears.

"You can't keep me away from the sea forever, Father," Harry said, his eyes meeting his father's hazel ones with steely resolve before he looked away to the tall, arched window, seeing none of the beautiful gilded pictures formed out of the stained glass.

When James said nothing, Harry excused himself out of the room, feeling more depressed than he had felt when he awoke with the realization that it was, once again, a birthday without his mother. He retreated into his chambers in the east wing, to his bedroom that faced the sea, and watched the gulls float over gently lapping waves.

'_How simple their existence are,' _Harry's blank mind mused to entertain him, as he leaned into cold, hard bedpost, fingers fiddling with its thick, dark emerald green silken curtains. _'Eat. Sleep. Lay eggs. Just like the fishes…'_

'_I wonder how it feels to be a fish….'_

* * *

Ta-da!

You know the one paragraph above that consists of one long sentence? It was underlined in green in my Ms. Word, haha, with a note "long sentence (consider revising)" but I couldn't find any place to full stop the sentence, so there you go. I hope it's not confusing.

**By the way**, a teacher of mine once taught me that the difference between "shore" and "beach" is the perspective; someone on a ship will say "shore" but someone on land will say "beach". Do you all who speak English as native language do that? My thesaurus suggests, "Shore" is "the land along the edge of a body of water" while "beach" is "an area of sand sloping down to the water of sea or lake" which means body of water. I don't get it.

Another thing is when I type "fishermen" Ms. Word suggested "anglers". Is that because Microsoft is American, or is it a faulty spell check, because "fisherman" is someone whose occupation is catching fish, "angler" is someone who catches fish using hook and line, which are two different things.

I digress. This chapter is approximately 2300 words long without author notes. **Review feeds my muse bunny!**

**10/18** Thank you Paroxysms for the suggestion-a small edit, really. I didn't realize the POVs are all mashed up together.


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